All posts tagged Gangnam Style

Kim Kardashian may have tried to break the internet but K-pop star Psy has come the closest.

Since his breakout hit “Gangnam Style” debuted in July 2012, it has become the most watched video on YouTube to date, scoring over 2.1 billion (that’s billion with a ‘b’) views. While this feat is staggering in itself, Google posted a nugget on YouTube’s Google+ page on Monday about this accomplishment, saying that it’s been viewed so many times they’ve been required to “upgrade” the video site’s backend. When YouTube was first designed, it was never expected for a video to exceed 2,147,483,647 views because of how the counter software was originally coded. “It’s like a car odometer,” says YouTube spokesperson Matt McLernon. “Once it rolls over the last nine, it resets.” He said the company thought 2 billion would be enough and it wasn’t.

Exactly how did Google know they were in need of an upgrade? Read More »

Two days ago, the YouTube-crushing K-Pop superstar that we know as PSY trolled his Twitter followers with a selfie showing him in a plane, with the tagline “on my way to NYC.” So where was he heading, exactly?

The answer: A star-studded gala gathering at the Museum of Modern Art, hosted by one of Korea’s biggest conglomerates, The CJ Group, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.

Though CJ began as the food and food services arm of Samsung Group (the CEO of Samsung, Lee Kun-Hee, is the estranged younger brother of former CJ Group president Lee Maeng-Hee), it leveraged its dominance in the manufacturing of sugar and flour into an array of other categories, from pharmaceuticals to packaged goods to banking and finance. In 1995, CJ launched an entertainment division — now the largest cinema and filmed entertainment company in Korea. At last night’s event, CJ E&M (“Entertainment and Media”) announced the donation of 10 of its classic films to MOMA’s cinema library, including masterpieces by Bong Joon-Ho (“The Host”) and Park Chan-Wook (“Oldboy”), and screened two works by rising filmmakers whose talents they helped to foster, “End of Animal” director Cho Sung-Hee, and Moon Byoung Gon, whose short film “Safe” was awarded the Palm d’Or at Cannes for Short Film. Read More »

The Norwegian comedy duo that has drilled the question “what does the fox say?” into the heads of millions of people worldwide with the YouTube hit “The Fox” is now looking to cash in on its enormous success.

The Ylvis brothers have filed a trademark for the phrase “what does the fox say” and an accompanying logo with Norwegian patent authorities, and hope to eventually start peddling a variety of tchotchkes ranging from t-shirts to Christmas ornaments.

The move comes just as “The Fox” eclipsed the 100 million view mark on Youtube. The song, featuring a guy wearing a fox suit singing “wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow,” took 35 days to hit 100 million, or 16 days fewer than Korean rapper Psy’s ultra-successful “Gangnam Style.”

However, Psy still holds the record on reaching 100 million views fastest. “Gentleman,” Psy’s follow-up to “Gangnam Style,” took just four days before it reached 100 million views.

In a statement published on TV Norige, the national Norwegian television that runs an Ylvis television show, Vegard Ylvisåker – one of the brothers – made light of the milestone. “Wow,” he said. “That’s the same as a billion.”

“The Fox” has also climbed to the eight position on the Billboard Hot 100 ranking, the weekly singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks tunes based on radio play and sales. Read More »

A video of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers dancing to K-Pop superstar PSY‘s globe-spanning hit “Gangnam Style” has gone viral — primarily because of the location where the, er, horseplay took place: At a Palestinian hotspot in Hebron known to be frequented by the Jabari, a clan closely linked to Hamas.

According to Israel’s Channel 2, the soldiers, belonging to the Rotem battalion of the elite Givati Brigade, reportedly heard the unmistakable strains of the song coming from an alleyway and left patrol to investigate. Discovering the party in progress, they decided to join in, despite being dressed in full combat gear — flak vests, fatigues and helmets — and carrying their Tavor TAR-21 assault rifles.

The Palestinians, who were in the process of celebrating a wedding, apparently chose to welcome the soldiers into the throng, laughingly embracing them and even hoisting one of them up on their shoulders. An onlooker captured the event with a smartphone and posted it to Al-Fajer TV, a Palestinian news site, where it quickly spread across the Middle East blogosphere and, upon being aired on Israeli television, around the world. Read More »

Just three days after its release, PSY’s followup to his record-smashing YouTube hit “Gangnam Style,” an anthem to gleeful malice with the ironic title “Gentleman,” has astonishingly set a pace that, if maintained, would rocket it past its predecessor’s one billion viewings in less than a half of the time.

The video currently has 92 million views, having been watched 50 million times in just its first 24 hours — a total that vaporized the previous record of 8 million held by fellow Scooter Braun client Justin Bieber for the May 3 release of his video for “Boyfriend.”

But what’s truly remarkable is that if “Gentleman” simply tracks the growth rate of “Gangnam,” it will take over the all-time record in a little over a month, and hurdle 4 billion in 45 days. And in just 75 days, “Gentleman” would project out as hitting 12.6 billion views.Read More »

He’s baaaaack. At 6:30 pm Seoul time (5:30 am this morning Eastern), in front of a raucous crowd of over 50,000 people at Seoul’s Sangam stadium, Park Jae-Song, the rotund rap raconteur better known as PSY, unveiled the music video for his new single “Gentleman,” the followup to his implausible worldwide hit “Gangnam Style.”

And if you liked the latter, you’ll probably enjoy PSY’s second helping, which methodically retraces the steps that turned him into Korea’s most infectious cultural export.

It features the singer wandering through a surreal version of Seoul’s most upmarket and downscale locales, encountering much of the Gangnam gang, including popular TV hosts Yoo Jae-Seok — PSY’s “yellow suit guy” nemesis from the first video — and Noh Hong-Chul, A.K.A. “elevator guy.” (The former has arguably the funniest appearance in “Gentleman,” while the latter makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo, doing his signature pelvic thrusts, in the background of another scene.) Read More »

Settling into his role as the music industry’s man about town, Dave Grohl today gave the keynote address at the South By Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas, a speech that’s previously been delivered by Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Smokey Robinson.

In remarks that included at least 40 seemingly scripted f-bombs, he reminisced about his formative years–inspiration from Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein,” his first Sears guitar, tutorials from a punk-rock cousin, dropping out of high school to tour–and the liberation of DIY music. He also recounted Nirvana’s origin story, including the Kurt Cobain mission statement to be “the biggest band in the world,” and the identity crisis the band’s success brought. Read More »

In April, 12-year-old Torontonian Jorel Hoffert is poised to cross the threshold to manhood — and to announce this signal event, he conscripted his parents and grandparents to make a truly mind-blowing video invitation, which has to be seen to be believed (and beloved).

The video features young Hoffert throwing down serious East-West swag: Crooning a reskinned “Bohemian Rhapsody,” showing off serious air-guitar and actual-piano chops, and finishing off with an epic Gangnam-style finale. And the lyrics are hilarious, with lines like “I’m half a Jew/Learned Hebrew/I’m half Asian and proud of that too.” Over-the-top bar mitzvah videos have become a thing (see: Shaun Sperling, Daniel Blumen), but this one should have ended with a mic drop.

“We were just trying to do something fun and different,” says Jorel’s father, David Hoffert. “So we thought, ‘Hey, let’s make the invitation a music video, no one’s ever done that before!’ How little we knew.”

Who would’ve thought that a K-pop music video performed by a goofy, suit-and-sunglass-wearing star would pass the one-billion mark on YouTube?

International pop star PSY’s video, “Gangnam Style,” did just that today, and is the first YouTube video to have that distinction. Since the video was first uploaded five months ago, everyone from Britney Spears to Hugh Jackman has shown off their “Oppa Gangnam Style” dance skills (which include crossing your wrists and pretending to bounce on a horse) and crooned, “Heyyyy, sexy lady!” Read More »

Two weeks ago, actress and singer Patti LuPone grabbed a cell phone out of the hand of an audience member who was texting during a performance of her current play, "Shows for Days." The bold move led to an outpouring of support from fans fed up with glowing screens. Ms. LuPone gives us her five rules of theater etiquette.